Tag: Mar-a-Lago

Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago…

(WED 8/31/22)

Looks like obstruction of justice … The Justice Department pushed back on federal district judge for the Southern District of Florida Aileen M. Cannon’s “preliminary intent” to grant Trump attorneys a “special master” to overlook the case of the FBI’s August 8 search of government documents kept at Mar-a-Lago, NPR reports. “The Case of FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago” is not a Nancy Drew title: DOJ released photos of the classified documents, many labeled moved to a floor at ex-President Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate and club, next to boxes of old, framed magazine covers of The Donald. FBI agents had to be granted special security clearance August 8 to inspect some of the documents. 

The DOJ says the classified documents were “likely concealed and removed” from locked Mar-a-Lago storage, to avoid discovery in the FBI search. As pundits have speculated in recent days, the Justice Department’s criminal investigation centers on obstruction of justice.

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Gorbachev is dead … Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader who oversaw the dismantling of the Soviet Union and helped end the Cold War, died in Moscow Tuesday after a “long and grave illness,” according to The New York Times. He was 91. 

Gorbachev, who became president of the Soviet Union in 1985, helped bring the Cold War to a peaceful end, freed satellite countries in Eastern Europe and reunited Germany, but his reforms of Russia have since been reversed by its current president, Vladimir Putin. 

“I think he’s one of the most consequential leaders of the 20th Century,” Michael McFaul, ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, told NPR’s Morning Edition.

--Todd Lassa

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...meanwhile...Mar-a-Lagogate (TUE 8/30/22)

Mastered documents … No need for a special master to review documents confiscated from Mar-a-Lago in the FBI’s August 8 search of ex-President Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida home. The Justice Department has told U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon that a “filter team” already has weeded out material that should not be reviewed by the criminal investigation, The Washington Post reports. Pundits and analysts have been wondering why Donald J. Trump’s attorneys have waited this long to request the special master. Judge Cannon, a Trump appointment, said last Saturday it was her “preliminary intent” to appoint a special master, but now we will not need to wait for her decision. 

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Secret Service assistant director retires … U.S. Secret Service Assistant Director Tony Ornato, a key figure in the House Select Committee hearings on the January 6 Capitol attack, has announced his retirement after 25 years of service, Just Security reports. In a key hearing this summer, Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, told the panel that Ornato described then-President Trump as lashing out “in anger” when Secret Service agents refused to drive him to the Capitol on January 6.

--Todd Lassa

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Will Mar-a-Lagogate Finish Trump? (MON 8/29/22)

Donald J. Trump is embroiled in one more scandal that may stretch beyond the limits of his political career.

Again.

This time, however, there is concern over what sort of harm the ex-president’s hubris in running off to Mar-a-Lago with what he has insisted are his White House documents may have imposed on our national security. As originally reported by Politico National Intelligence Director Avril D. Haines has written to the House Intelligence and Oversight Committees that her office will lead an investigation to assess the “potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure” of the 184 government documents that Trump hauled off to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House. This will be an assessment of what intelligence sources and systems may have been identified within those boxes of papers kept at the ex-president’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate. 

Of three criminal laws listed as the basis for the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago served August 8, much of the attention has been on the Espionage Act and the FBI’s recovery of 25 top secret, 92 secret and 67 confidential documents. But according to The New York Times Sunday “the crime of obstruction is as, or even more, serious a threat to Mr. Trump or his close associates,” and cites Section 1519 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In other words, Trump may be held responsible for keeping the documents from being returned to the National Archives for more than a year after he left the White House. Violating Section 1519 carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, “which is twice as long as the penalty under the Espionage Act,” the Times says.

Florida judge: Meanwhile, Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida said Saturday it is her “preliminary intent” to appoint a “special master” to conduct a review of the 184 documents the FBI seized three weeks ago, the NYT says. According to NPR, a special master is usually an attorney or former judge acting as an independent arbiter in the case – typically requested an appointed at the time the warrant is served.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

184 Sensitive Documents at Mar-a-Lago

(MON 8/29/22)

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board somewhat famously flipped on its support of ex-President Donald J. Trump in July over his complicity in the January 6 Capitol insurrection < https://thehustings.news/reactions-to-the-1-6-hearings-season-finale/?fbclid=IwAR1jufdXpDcuU4mtlT7FLd-Jc7oGSXD7eGtuyceoQ2CumdJ4Ma2K7_X3LDc&loggedout=true>. But after the Department of Justice released 38 heavily redacted pages of affidavit in support of the FBI’s August 8 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and private golf club, the WSJ’s opinion pages led off with, “Is that all there is?”

About half the 38 pages were redacted, with some pages completely blacked out in what the Justice Department said is an ongoing criminal investigation. The document includes “sensitive details about human intelligence sources or how spy agencies intercept the electronic communications of foreign targets,” according to The Washington Post. The Justice Department “is suspicious of obstruction by Trump or his allies,” WaPo says, and “(i)t’s possible Trump allies were talking to the FBI about all this.”

The affidavit counts 25 top secret documents, 92 secret documents and 67 confidential documents among the 184 documents the Justice Department says Trump kept, unsecured, at Mar-a-Lago.

--Todd Lassa

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Judge Orders Release of Redacted Affidavit (FRI, 8/26/22)

Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhardt has ordered the U.S. Justice Department to unseal its redacted affidavit that lays out the evidence used for the FBI’s August 8 search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago for sensitive government documents the ex-president allegedly mishandled after he left the White House, according to Politico. Reinhardt has accepted the DOJ redactions that were due at noon Eastern time Thursday, while the Justice Department warns that the heavy redactions would render the documents incomprehensible. 

It is unclear whether the Justice Department will appeal, Politico reports.

In his ruling, Reinhardt emphasized the Justice Department’s “good cause” in redacting elements that would have revealed “identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents and uncharged parties,” as well as “strategy, direction, scope, sources and methods,” and information about the grand jury. 

Meanwhile: Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon has given Trump’s attorneys until Friday to better explain why the former president wants a “special master” to review the Justice Department’s evidence in the case, CNN reports.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

On the Right

Should Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) be compelled to testify before Fulton County, Georgia’s special grand jury investigating the 2020 presidential election? What are your thoughts on pro-MAGA treatment of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is retiring as the nation’s lead infectious disease expert?

Also, national security attorney Bradley P. Moss called the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago “justified,” in an op-ed for Fox News Digital [https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-mar-a-lago-search-justified].

Opine on these or any other recent issues covered here in the Comment box below, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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About the Timing

As the FBI receives heightened threats from the radical right over its search of Mar-a-Lago last week, liberal and never-Trump conservative pundits warn the serving of the warrant will inspire a heavy pro-MAGA vote in the midterms, and possibly boost Donald J. Trump’s own chances for the 2024 presidential election. But Democrat strategists also are hopeful that Trump will announce for ’24 this fall and re-invigorate the party’s own chances in the midterms. 

Voice your opinions on which party gains most from the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, whether you are left or right, in the Comment box in the left or right columns, or email editors@thehustings.news. Be sure to read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s take on the ex-prez’s use of his Florida estate as a repository for classified White House papers in the right column.

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Of Scanners, Stars and Boxes

By Stephen Macaulay

For about $100 you can buy a computer scanner.

In a matter of moments even documents that are labeled “top secret/sensitive compartmented information” could be deposited on a hard drive for quick email distribution or stuck on a thumb drive.

Donald Trump, not a man known for his dynamic reading capability (or even for, well, reading), took 26 boxes of documents to Mar-a-Lago, which is described on its website as “the only private club world-wide to attain the prestigious 6-Star Diamond Award from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences.”

The what?

Well, according to a May 2016 AP story, “when it comes to Trump, the academy isn't an independent observer.

“The organization is run by Joseph Cinque, a longtime Trump acquaintance who goes by the nickname "Joey No Socks" and has a felony conviction for possessing stolen property.”

And it goes on to report:

“As recently as last May, Trump himself was listed on the group's website as its "ambassador extraordinaire," and he appeared in a 2009 tribute video to Cinque in which he said: "There's nobody like him. He's a special guy."

“But Trump told The Associated Press on Friday that he doesn't know Cinque well and was unaware of Cinque's criminal conviction.”

All of this sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Now anyone who has moved house, even if it isn’t from one of the most legendary houses in the world to a prestigious 6-Star Diamond manse, knows that when you pack boxes often things go awry. Somehow no matter how carefully you mark things, there is a nearly metaphysical impossibility that all of the forks disappear. And sometimes upon unpacking there is the discovery of something that was long thought to be lost.

So let’s give Trump a benefit of a doubt. Certainly something in that move—a move that he still argues shouldn’t have occurred because the election was stolen, rigged or otherwise stacked against him (and let’s not forget, he, too, is a special guy)—probably got misplaced. After all, he had to be in a bit of a rush.

Maybe it just so happened that some documents that are top, top secret just happened to get snagged on a paper clip on the stack of love letters (his adjective) to Kim Jong-un and was shipped to his swank (six diamonds!) digs purely by accident.

But then there is that little matter of him taking things he had no legal right to. Boxes and boxes.

On Meet the Press August 14, Andrea Mitchell put it to presidential historian Michael Beschloss that Trump tweeted, “President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots.”

Beschloss responded, surprisingly, “Well, President Trump is absolutely right. Barack Obama has tens of millions of documents. . .” YIKES! but the shoe drops. . .”and they are in a National Archives installation, Hoffman Estates, Illinois, under armed guard with heavy surveillance, using the procedures that are supposed to be used for a former president. We have never in history seen a former president take ultra-classified documents, stick them in his basement, loosely watched by government standards, and with the shadow of we still don't know what his motive was.”

Well, it is the basement of that venue that won that coveted award.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Trump Tower got one of those plaques, too.

But I wonder about that scanner.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Contact Us

Although we’re joining Congress in taking recess through Labor Day, this is a good opportunity to voice your thoughts for the right or the left columns. Write your opinions down in the Comments box in this column or the left column, or email us at editors@thehustings.news and please include your political leanings (conservative or liberal) in the subject line.

Scroll down to read our aggregate coverage of the FBI’s search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and the fallout, with commentary in the left and right columns. Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay’s commentary, “Donald Trump and the Art of the Flush” is below in the right column.

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The Documents Were There. Really. The FBI Took Them Back

By Jim McCraw

Whether he will be prosecuted for it or not, it is a simple fact that, if there had not been a number of classified documents still inside Mar-A-Lago after repeated attempts by federal authorities to return them to the National Archives, it would not have been necessary for the FBI to serve the search warrant and execute the search of the former president’s mansion on Monday.

A simple fact the Trump people resolutely refuse to understand has turned into loud accusations of political persecution. “Persecution” of a man who has been flouting the law since college, told more than 20,000 lies while in office, was impeached twice, lost big in 2020, told The Big Lie about the election, and fomented the January 6th attack on the Capitol, continues to evade and flout the law, but is still somehow a great guy who deserves another chance to run the country.

The right has accused the Biden administration of another witch hunt, while the White House says it has been completely unaware of the timing of execution of the warrant. The White House would have not scheduled Biden’s signing of the CHIPS Act on the same day it would be overshadowed by the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. 

That wasn’t enough to keep the right from bleating instantly about a witch hunt, persecution, and “weaponizing” of the Justice Department. The FBI serves warrants on private citizens in all kinds of federal investigations every day. Donald J. Trump is a private citizen with Secret Service protection, but a private citizen, nevertheless, who had access to classified documents and information for four years and illegally retained some of those documents, contents unknown, which are the property of the American people, not Donald Trump. That’s as much as we know about the FBI affidavit or the search warrant. The documents were there, and they were taken away. Trump’s lawyers have an invoice of items removed from Mar-a-Lago, and they have the right to release that invoice to the public.

For legal actions, warrants and searches involving a former president to even happen in the first place requires very, very careful sequential steps by the DOJ, the FBI, local police, and of course, the Secret Service, which was duly informed prior to the early morning visit to Mar-a-Lago.  The documents were there, illegally, and the FBI took them away.

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View from the Left

And so the hard-right continues to lambast the FBI and Justice Department for Monday’s FBI seizure of 12 boxes of documents that belong to the federal government from Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. The MAGA-right are listening to the conspiracy social media-right, insisting that the ex-president continues to be mistreated, continues to be the victim of a deep-state witch hunt. This could mean another civil war.

Some even suggest that perhaps the FBI planted those dozen banker’s boxes full of papers found in Mar-a-Lago’s basement. Conversely, The Wall Street Journal reports that it appears to be a Trump insider who tipped off the Justice Department that Trump failed to return all the boxes they had demanded be returned months ago.

Our estimable pundit-at-large, Stephen Macaulay, weighs in on all this on the other side of this page, in the right column. Spoiler alert: Macaulay is, once again not the least bit sympathetic toward Trump. What is Macaulay doing in the right column, you ask? He has always leaned right as a conservative in the traditional sense of the adjective and would consider authoritarian populists like the ex-president to be the true RINOs.

Whether your politics are to the right or left of Stephen Macaulay, you are invited to tell us what you think in the Comments box in this column or in the one on the right, or to email editors@thehustings.news. You’re even invited to defend Donald J. Trump if that’s your thing. Please be civil in your comments, and please avoid false or misleading statements. Your comments may be edited for length or clarity, though not for point of view.

--TL

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FBI Removed 11 Sets of Docs from Mar-a-Lago

(FRI 8/12/22)

Some marked ‘top secret’ … and meant to be only available in special government facilities, according to documents taken from ex-President Trump’s Florida estate, as reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The FBI took about 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and Trump’s executive grant of clemency to his ally, Roger Stone. Information about the “President of France” was included in the list, which is in a seven-page document included with the search warrant granted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.

The FBI’s list includes one set of documents marked “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” (for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information”) the WSJ reports. Agents collected four sets of top secret documents and three sets each of secret documents and of confidential documents. The list gave no other details. 

Trump’s attorneys say that he used his authority to declassify the material before he left office. The president has power to do this, according to the WSJ, but only under a process described by federal regulations. 

Regarding that French president: The FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago to look for nuclear documents and other items, The Washington Post reported earlier. France, for what it’s worth, is Continental Europe’s only designated nuclear weapons state.

Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich’s response: “The Biden administration is in obvious damage control after their botched raid where they seized the President’s picture books, a ‘hand written note’ and declassified documents. This raid of President Trump’s home was not just unprecedented, but unnecessary.”

Fact-check:

•It was a legal FBI search, not a “raid.” 

•Trump is ex-president, not president. 

•According to the White House, Biden had no knowledge of the search until Trump himself announced it Monday night.

Some Republicans back off: Congressional Republicans are “contorting” themselves over details of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, Politico reports. “As new information emerged about the circumstances behind the FBI search … the contrast drew starker between Republicans advancing a knee-jerk defense of the former president and those who are simply calling for additional disclosures” by the Justice Department, including Ohio’s Rep. Mike Turner, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

--Todd Lassa

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Garland Seeks to Unseal Mar-a-Lago Warrant (FRI 8/12/22)

By Todd Lassa

UPDATE: Ex-President Trump has called for the "immediate release" of the Justice Department's search warrant and property receipt for the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, per NPR, though Trump's own lawyers have always had the right to release these documents themselves.

The Justice Department has filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida seeking to unseal the search warrant and property receipt for the FBI search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland announced in a rare public statement Thursday afternoon. Garland confirmed that the search was conducted in his authority and used the public forum to defend the actions of his department and of the FBI. 

Copies of the warrant and FBI receipt were provided to the former president’s counsel at Mar-a-Lago on the day of the search, as required by law, Garland said. In accordance with federal law and ethics rules and obligations, the AG was not able to give further details, but Garland said he had to make “certain points” after the strong reaction to the search by pro-Trump followers and pro-MAGA media:

•“I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.”

•“The department does not take such decisions lightly. When possible, it is standard practice to seek less-intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”

•On the  “unfounded attacks on the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors; I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our personal rights. They do so at great sacrifice and risk to themselves…

“I am honored to work alongside them.”

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...meanwhile... (THU 8/11/22)

'Deplorable and dangerous' ... FBI Director Christopher Wray's reaction to Trump supporters circulating threats online toward his agents after carrying out a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago Monday. "I'm always concerned about threats to law enforcement," the FBI chief, appointed by President Trump in 2017, said in a press conference following a visit to the Omaha field office. "Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you're upset with." (Per USA Today.)

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Gas drops below $4/gallon ... The average price per gallon for regular unleaded in the U.S. is $3.99 as of Thursday, AAA reports, down from a peak of $5.016 per gallon on June 14.

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Fomenting civil war? ... Rhetoric from what constitutes the right wing these days raged on over the FBI’s search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago to recover a dozen boxes of classified government documents airlifted with the ex-president to his Florida compound. 

Trump was in Manhattan Monday when the FBI descended on the compound with warrant in hand, and Wednesday he appeared before New York State Attorney Gen. Letitia James for her questioning in the Trump Organization’s civil trial. Of course, Trump evoked the Fifth Amendment to all but one question, The New York Times reports – he confirmed his identity. Of course, Trump’s detractors dug up a tape of him on the campaign trail in 2016, calling the Fifth a mobster tactic and asking why anyone would use it except for evade the truth. Of course he replied to his detractors by saying that now, finally, he knows what good pleading the Fifth is for.

Pleading the Fifth was a smart tactic, and good advice from Trump’s lawyers, University of Michigan law professor and former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade told NPR’s All Things Considered. Any testimony Trump would give in his company's civil trial could be used as evidence in the criminal trial, McQuade said.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Donald Trump and the Art of the Flush

By Stephen Macaulay

As you may recall from the early days of the pandemic, there was a monumental difficulty in acquiring toilet paper. It was just one of those things that people suddenly realized that were there to be a dearth of, things would not come out particularly well in the end. And because of that realization, the amount of available toilet paper was nearly non-existent.

One thing that continued to be available — more or less, with the emphasis on the latter — was facial tissue. The stuff you use to blow your nose with.

While the configuration of the two — toilet paper and tissues — is different, the material seems to be reasonably the same.

So people, not surprisingly, thought that if they couldn’t get their grip on Charmin, they could use the box of Kleenex.

Turned out that that was a bad move. Warnings came out that while toilet paper is formulated to be dissolved in water, that’s not the case for seemingly similar paper products. The latter would lead to clogs in sewers and septic systems.

One wonders how busy Emergency Plumbing of West Palm Beach is.

Maggie Haberman gave Axios two photographs that show the toilet in the White House residence during the Trump residency: Two pictures of torn up paper — as in copier paper, not something with a flimsiness to it — with Trump’s handwriting visible.

According to Haberman, Trump has a penchant for ripping and flushing.

So the FBI searches Mar-A-Logo.

There is a federal law, the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which, among other things, according to the National Archives:

  • Establishes that Presidential records automatically transfer into the legal custody of the Archivist as soon as the President leaves office.

Hmm . . . seems that Trump has taken a whole lot of documents when he left Washington. Back in January the National Archives and Records Administration got 15 boxes of White House records from Mar-a-Lago.

Presumably there were more.

There is a federal law. If he didn’t “automatically transfer into the legal custody of the Archivist,” isn’t that, ipso facto, a crime?

Maybe it is much simpler.

Possibly the Justice Department was worried about the plumbing situation in Palm Beach.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump Signs $900-billion COVID Relief Package

By Todd Lassa

President Trump signed the $900-billion COVID-19 emergency relief Sunday night while enjoying an extended Christmas weekend at Mar-a-Lago. He had left Washington last week while erstwhile Senate Republican allies fumed because he wanted $2,000 checks to taxpayers, calling the $600 checks in the bill, and items he considers excessive “a disgrace.”

The president’s signing of the bill also averts a federal government shutdown Monday night, with $1.4-trillion to fund the government through fall of 2021. In addition, the bill provides eviction protection for millions of people, who would have otherwise faced potential homelessness. 

“I will sign the omnibus and COVID package with a strong message that wasteful items need to be removed,” Trump said, according to Politico. He said he planned to send back to Congress a “redlined” version with items to be removed from the bill, which has no effect on its passage.

Last week Trump vetoed a $740.5-billion defense spending bill for the coming fiscal year, because it contained a provision to rename military bases named for Confederate leaders, and online liability protections. Like the COVID relief bill, the defense spending legislation was passed by veto-proof Senate majorities. The Senate is scheduled to return to the Capitol Tuesday. 

For one Coronapocalipse weekend, Trump and Pelosi appeared to be on the same political page, as Pelosi was eager to take up the president’s demand for bigger relief checks, even after months of negotiations between her and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin landed on the $600 figure. The House will vote on a separate bill Monday that would increase the payments to $2,000.

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